Haynes, K. R. - The Light in Her Eyes [In Her Eyes] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by K. R. Haynes

  The brief conversation Randall had had with Chloe over the phone had been a pretty one-sided affair. She had seemed distracted. When he broached the subject with her, she had told him she was “fine.” In other words, she wasn’t, and him being stuck down at the station wasn’t helping matters either. As far as he knew she hadn’t received any more messages. However, Chloe had been having nightmares recently. Vivid nightmares of the stalker keeping her locked up and naked in a tiny room with dirt floors.

  One night she’d woken him up from screaming at the top of her lungs in her sleep. He had had to shake her awake to stop her screaming her throat raw. He didn’t give a fuck if she woke the neighbourhood up with her screaming.

  It had taken hours to settle her back down. Chloe refused to elaborate on what had happened in the nightmare, more afraid of it becoming a reality if she were to voice the context of the nightmare out loud to him. The reality of it, though, was that she handed the sick fuck stalking her more control over her life by letting him invade her dreams. However, Randall had chosen not to advise Chloe of this. She was stressed enough as it was without him adding his, more than likely unwanted, opinion on top of the shit she’d been dealing with lately. So he listened to what little information she did disclose about the nightmare.

  It worried him to no end that Chloe even had these dreams and thoughts to start with. His only hope was to make sure they never came true, that this bastard never laid a finger on her. So help him god, if the stupid fuck was dumb enough to try…Well, the bastard would be wishing he hadn’t by the time Randall was finished with him.

  The main reason, though, Mick had called him wasn’t to tell on Chloe. It was to advise him the PI had been arranged. At the moment the PI was heading down to the station for a private sneaky peek at the evidence gathered so far from Chloe’s place. Randall was to meet the man privately investigating Chloe’s case for them at the side entrance to the station.

  Slipping out the side entrance door, Randall waited in the shadows of the late afternoon sun for the dude to show up. A few minutes later an unmarked dark Sedan pulled up a few metres from where he stood and a man exited the vehicle. He wore plain clothing. His longish jet-black hair was pulled back off his unshaven face. Tinted sunglasses shielded his eyes from view and gave his face a harsher appearance. Randall got the impression he was staring at another Dom, and a hard-core one if the man’s appearance was anything to go by.

  Waiting until the other man stood a mere foot away from where he stood, Randall stuck out his hand to him. “Jake Jackson?”

  “Yes,” the PI answered shaking Randall’s hand, “and you must be Randall. Mick said you would be waiting for me and he wasn’t wrong. Please lead the way.” Opening the side door, Randall ushered the PI inside and down the long corridor to the evidence room. Punching in the code to the security panel at the closed door, the door clicked open and they both stepped inside. Randall directed the PI over to the steel viewing bench where he had the evidence laid out for him to view.

  “As you can see we don’t have much. Other than a dozen or so voice messages and the dead rose with the letter there’s not a hell of a lot here. We’ve run tests on the letter and the dead rose for prints, fibres and any other fluids that may have been on them.”

  “Any word from the lab yet?” Jake asked him. Randall nodded his head. “So what were the results then?”

  “No prints or fibres. The other tests came back inconclusive.” To a degree that was near enough to the truth. Randall wasn’t about to tell the PI that a minuscule amount of semen had been found on the letter. There hadn’t been enough semen to get a precise DNA match, but what they did have could be traced back to the fucker once caught though. The information regarding the bodily fluid found was on a need-to-know basis. Not even Mick knew about that little discovery. Chloe definitely didn’t know about the semen either. She was freaked out enough as it was without knowing that some freak had ejaculated on the letter he left for her to find.

  “Here are the first few voice messages Chloe received from the fucker.” Pressing the play button on the answering machine they both listened to the sinister male voice issuing his first lot of threats to Chloe.

  “My understanding is that you have all her phones tapped now?” Jake asked when the last message finished playing.

  “Yes, both her mobile and home phones are tapped. There haven’t been any messages since we tapped them though.”

  “Do you have the latest messages left for her here as well?” Jake asked Randall, while viewing the dead rose and letter in the evidence bags.

  “Yes.”

  Picking up and placing the other small tape into the answering machine, Randall pressed play and they listened to the more recent messages. Every time he had to listen to them, Randall always had the same reaction. An undeniable urge to hunt and kill the one threatening Chloe, to make sure the dumb fuck never threatened anyone else again, including his woman!

  “Right, well, Mick’s given me Chloe’s addresses for both work and home. Is there anything else I should know before I head out?”

  “Only that she’s currently staying at my place, but the day after tomorrow Chloe will be staying with her friend Mary J for the weekend.”

  “Then I’ll need both yours and the friend’s address before I leave. I’ll head over to your place first to speak to Chloe and introduce myself.”

  “I’ll let her know to expect you then.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  Quickly writing down both addresses for Jake, Randall then boxed up all the evidence and shoved it back on the shelf where it belonged. Walking Jake back out of the evidence room, Randall’s mobile starting ringing. Flipping the thing open, he glanced down at the screen to see who was calling him.

  “Ahh shit, I’ve got to take this. You right to see yourself out?”

  “Yep, I’ll be in touch when I have something.”

  “If you can’t get hold of me then call Mick instead and fill him in. He’ll know how to get the information to me.”

  “Will do, speak soon.”

  Randall watched the PI take off down the empty corridor. Hitting the answer button on his phone and holding it up to his ear, he uttered “talk to me” to his team leader.

  Hanging up the phone five minutes later, Randall was pissed. All hell had broken loose on the case he had been working on. The group of thugs, known as the Gang of 39, that he and his team had been tracking for the last few months had moved a shipment of highly explosive material last night. The undisclosed location, according to the source working for the Bomb Squad, was a warehouse located near one of the docks along the harbour. The only problem was the source didn’t know which dock or warehouse it was, and there were at least five possible locations in the area alone.

  Fucking perfect. Just what he needed was a bloody wild-goose chase. Not.

  There went any hope of seeing his woman any time soon. That thought had just gotten shot out of the water. “Fuck.” Flipping his phone open again, Randall sent a quick text message to Chloe, filling her in briefly on the situation down here at the station. Switching the phone off, he headed down the corridor to the command centre for the debriefing. It was going to be a long arse of day, that was for sure. “Fucking perfect,” Randall muttered under his breath as he stepped inside the command centre.

  * * * *

  Driving out of the station’s car park, Jake knew there was more to the evidence than what the cop was letting on. His instincts kicked in the moment the cop told him the results of any fluids found were inconclusive. That was a load of bullshit if he ever heard it. They had discovered something. What the police had found though was obviously on a need-to-know basis, something his buddy, Mick, didn’t know a damn thing about either, because if Mick had known he would’ve mentioned it.

  When Mick had called him to take on this case, saying it was for an old friend and his lover who was being stalked, Jake hadn’t been about to say no. He had heard the desperation in Mick’s v
oice. All the evidence the police had collected so far had been minimal at best. However, there was enough to start an investigation on.

  The thing that struck a chord with Jake, though, was the dead rose. He had seen that once before, on a case he had been called to assist on a year or so ago. Jake scrubbed a hand over his face. He remembered that one case, the one where he had been too late to rescue the female victim from a violent death.

  The young female victim, Emily Townsend, had been only twenty-nine years old upon her death. She had been a victim of a horrendous sexual attack. The bastard who had kidnapped her had also tortured and raped her until she died from the horrific injuries he inflicted on her. Before the kidnapping, the bastard had also stalked her for months and left her threatening messages similar to the ones Chloe was receiving now.

  The dead rose…

  Had to be symbolic with the way the dead petals were burnt at the edges.

  It was a silent message, which came with a deadly outcome for its targeted victim.

  The late Emily Townsend had received an identical rose a month before her kidnapping. The sick bastard who raped and tortured her burnt the place down he had taken her to. A ramshackle place out in the middle of fuck knew where.

  The victim’s body had been discovered in an outer building that had been rigged to explode, destroying the body and any evidence with it. However, the police investigating Emily’s disappearance had been able to disable the explosives to retrieve her mutilated corpse.

  What little evidence the police had been able to retrieve from the victim’s body had also been inconclusive. The small amount of DNA that was discovered didn’t match any felons in either the police or FBI database at the time. There had been no fibres or prints found in the outer building or on the body. This left the police with an unsolved murder that had little to no evidence and no leads.

  There had been no persons of interest who could lead the police to why such a vicious crime had been committed. The police report Jake still had stated that the victim had been both a polite and gentle woman who befriended all who came into contact with her. She had been a much-loved daughter of Bob and Grace Townsend and a missed older sister to Henry Townsend. She had no reported enemies, no bad relationships. In fact all her relationships had ended amicably according to the police report.

  The only other piece of physical evidence linked to her murder, besides the victim’s body, had been a letter attached to another dead rose found at the victim’s home two days after her body was discovered. It had warned at the time that this was just the beginning.

  Jake knew now what that warning meant.

  Chloe Watson was the bastard’s next intended victim.

  But this time Jake was going to do everything he could to ensure the fucker didn’t get his hands on her. In honour of Emily Townsend, Jake vowed to kill this bastard who would dare to take another life so viciously.

  Pulling up at the curb, two houses down from where Chloe was currently staying, Jake prayed that this time he could save the innocent woman from the bastard threatening her. It was bad enough living with the death of the first innocent victim on his conscience without adding another innocent woman to it.

  Surveying the other houses along the street the cop lived on, Jake took a few moments to draw in a few deep breaths to steady the rage he could feel burning inside of him. His rage had become second nature to him over the past few years, brought on by too many deaths, deaths that were both unnecessary and unwanted. Jake was pleased to find the cop lived in a fairly secure neighbourhood. The house the cop lived in was locked up good, too, with high-tech security not visible to the unknowledgeable eye. Jake was knowledgeable though and trained to detect the undetectable. So it pleased him to see the cop took the safety of himself and his lover seriously.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Sitting on the far end of one of the sofas in the lounge room with a blanket wrapped around her and dressed in one of Randall’s shirts and a pair of her own sweatpants, Chloe looked on as Mick and the PI who had been hired to help track down the stalker, Jake, talked. Her head throbbed from all the questions and information thrown her way.

  Plus, she missed Randall.

  She wished that he didn’t have to stay at the station anymore when on call. Surely his boss could see Randall’s dedication to the team and his job by now, enough to at least allow him to go home at the end of every shift.

  She knew Randall was working on a big case, and going by the text he sent her a while ago, the case had just blown wide open. Chloe only hoped that Jon wouldn’t have to stay at the station any longer than his shifts allowed for.

  Her desperation to see him was something Chloe didn’t want to have to acknowledge to herself. But every day they were apart from one another was one more day she couldn’t be with him. To remember him and what he meant to her.

  With the sick bastard closing in on her, Chloe needed Randall to be here with her. She knew it was a selfish thing to need. Randall’s job was important to him, she knew this, but it still didn’t stop her from wishing he didn’t have to work so he could be here with her.

  Feeling her mobile vibrate, she flipped it opened and pulled up the text message left for her. She didn’t take any notice of who had sent her the message. She just assumed it would be from Randall, being that he promised to text her once his briefing had finished. However, when Chloe scanned the contents of the message she knew damn well it wasn’t from him.

  With a shaky voice she called out to Mick.

  Her hand shook when she held the phone out to him to view the most recent message sent to her from the bastard stalking her. Taking the phone from her hand, Mick cursed out loud when he saw how pale her skin had gone. Her stomach rolled. Chloe only just managed not to throw up her lunch on his shoes.

  After Mick read the text, he handed the phone to Jake to read. Chloe watched the two men kick into action. She knew that this was the breakthrough they had all been hoping for. The message could be traced to the origin it had been sent from, leading them hopefully to a location to capture the sick bastard.

  The latest message was disturbing with its graphic description of what the bastard had planned for her once she was his. Chloe shuddered at the thought of his latest threats becoming a reality.

  No, she would not be the bastard’s victim.

  If she had learnt anything over the past week, it was that being the bastard’s victim was so not happening. She would not allow it. Randall had taught her enough defensive moves over the past week to defend herself if the need ever arose. Chloe had been grateful at the time that Randall had taken the time to teach her those moves. She knew he would prefer to defend and protect her himself. They both knew that with his job that wasn’t always possible.

  Plus it was about time she learnt to defend herself anyway.

  There was only one thing that worried Chloe. When the time came and she needed to defend herself from the one targeting…could she do it? Or would the fear incapacitate her and leave her motionless to defend herself against the bastard’s advances?

  * * * *

  Stepping out of the command centre after the briefing ended, Randall had only just switched his phone back on when it started ringing. Flipping it open and noticing the call was coming from Mick, his first thoughts went to Chloe. With his heart racing Randall managed to keep his voice steady when he answered the call. “Mick, what’s up? Is Chloe all right, man?”

  “Yeah, she’s doing okay. She misses you I think, bro.” Randall grunted at that. “The reason I called though wasn’t to discuss your love life, mate.”

  “You don’t say. Cut the crap, Mick, and give it to me straight. I don’t have time to pussyfoot around. Shit has hit the fan down here on the case we’ve been working on. It’s all hands on deck at the moment.”

  “Shit.”

  “Don’t worry, mate. I have made sure you don’t get called in any earlier. You’re on for the day after tomorrow still, plus I needed your ass there with Ch
loe.”

  “Speaking of gorgeous.” The tone in Mick’s voice became more serious, making Randall’s heart beat even faster. “Mate, she received a fairly graphic text message from the stalker.”

  “How long ago, and is she all right?”

  “Within the last five minutes. She’s a bit shaken up.”

  “Put her on the phone.” Randall demanded to his old friend.

  Hearing Chloe’s fragile voice come over the phone line saying his name, Randall’s heart ached to be there for her. The need to hold her and comfort her all but consumed him.

  “Chloe, are you all right?”

  “Yes. No,” she sighed down the phone line. “I don’t know what to think, Jon. The message, it was disturbing in its graphical content. I’m scared, Jon. I don’t want to be but I am. ”

  “Shh, precious, you have every right to be scared.” Hell, he was scared for her, too. “I want you to promise me here and now that you will do everything Mick tells you to do. Promise me, Chloe, you will listen to him.”

  “I promise, Jon,” she whispered to him.

  Chloe sounded tired, almost defeated, too. God, he wished he could be there with her and not stuck down here at the damn station. He couldn’t even sneak out for twenty minutes to go see her, to know that she was indeed all right. Randall would give anything to be able to hold her in his arms right about now. Being that all hell had broken loose on the case his team had been working on, his missing presence would not go unnoticed.

  “Good girl. I’m going to leave my phone switched on silent and I want you to text me if you get scared or need to get something off your chest. I’ll try and answer your texts when I can.” Hearing his team leader call for him, Randall cursed to himself. “Listen, precious, I have to go. Text me if you need anything, and remember Mick’s there for you, too. I love you, Chloe.”